China and India to create world's biggest telescope

China and India have a catapulting to the forefront of astronomy research with their decisions to join as partners in a Hawaii telescope that will be the world’s largest when it’s done built later this decade. China and India will pay a type of share of the construction cost expected to top $1 billion for the thirty meter telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea volcano. They will also have a share of the observation time. It’s one of the first advanced telescope in which either nation has been a partner. They said that this will represent a quantum leap for the Chinese community Shude Mao, professor of astrophysics at National Astronomical Observatories of China. Thirty Meter Telescope’s segmented primary mirror which will be nearly 100 feet long. The telescope known as TMT, it will be able to observe plants that orbit stars other than the sun and enable astronomers to watch new planets and stars being formed. It should also help with scientists see some 13 billion light years away for a glimpse into the early years of the universe

Source: http://www.astromart.com/news/news.asp?news_id=1246

How Earth and the Moon interact

The Earth is unique amongst the terrestrial planers in having a large satellite, which it relative to the Earth has the largest mass of any satellite parent system. They said that there’s numerous lines of evidence indicate that the Moon was derived from the Earth as the result of a singular impact event that soon after initial formation of the Earth. As a result that they got of subsequent evolution of the Earth and the emergence and development of life has been strongly influenced by the presence of the Moon.

The Moon also raises tides in the solid body of the Earth and in the past, when the Moon has orbited much closer to the Earth than at the present, the tides are estimated to have produced displacements in the Earths solid surface of up to a kilometer. That this would haved produced intense stress and deformation within the Earth which, coupled with decaying heat of accretion and the higher content of the radioactive U, Th, and K elements would have greatly promoted melting of the early earth.

Source: http://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/earthmoon.html
By: Deissy Dominguez

Ultra-Fast Outflows Help Monster Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies

A new type of outflow that appears to be powerful enough to link the mass of a galaxies central black hole and the velocity of stars was identified by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center's Francesco Tombesi. The link between these two entities has puzzled astronomers and scientists for years.
Most Galaxies house an incredibly massive black hole at their center, but galaxies that contain black holes with even more mass also contain large "bulges" that contain stars that move faster than average stars. Before now, there was no plausible explanation for this behavior.

The only explanation we have now is still only 40% accurate. Tombesi, and his team predict that a new type of black-hole driven outflow is powering the speed at which the surrounding stars can move. The outflows are called ultra-fast outflows, and though they're not sure how exactly the two correspond, we're one step closer to unmasking yet another great mystery of the universe.

I thought this article was particularly interesting simply because the universe is home to so many mysteries, and regardless of what the specific mystery may be, it's amazing to think that mankind is making astronomical discoveries at all to me. The idea of celestial discovery amazes me, it seems so far away, but every day we spend studying the cosmos, we get closer and closer to that final frontier.

A Dying Star with Wind in it's Hair: Abell 31

Not too long ago astronomers came across a Planetary Nebula that looked like it's hair was blowing in the wind. Interesting right? A Planetary Nebula is a cloud of gas formed by a dying star that expels winds of matter outward; first very slow but then speeds up. The photo of Abell 31 was taken with a 0.9 meter telescope in Arizona on Mt. Lemmon. It took a long 21 hour exposer that used various filters. Why are we just noticing this now? Its because the nebula is very faint, which makes it difficult to see, which makes it easy to miss. Usually Planetary Nebulas are very symmetrical, but as you can see, this one is not! Why is that? This is because this Nebula is actually in motion, traveling through space(directly downward toward the bottom of the frame). The red gas is hydrogen, and the blue is oxygen. Although you cant see it, the oxygen is most likely present all around the nebula, but the center is only lit up because it is closer to the White Dwarf. Astronomers have found that it has about half the mass of the Sun, meaning it probably started out life as a star with about twice the mass of our sun, and lost the rest as it aged and blew the winds. This star started dying approximately 130,000 years ago. When this star died and became a White Dwarf, and this White Dwarf core is very small, approximately 4 times the size of earth. Thats pretty small. Although this core is puny, it is HOT, at around 150,000 degrees F. This nebula is the opposite, it is huge, and on a clear night you can see it, its about half the size of a full moon.

I chose to do this article because at first I thought that the picture was really beautiful, and i really dig Nebulas. It was interesting to me how when the star dies it expels gasses in this gorgeous way. I found it very interesting that it is moving in space, and that Nebulas can move in space. Overall this article really stuck out to me because i had never seen or heard of anything like it.

Mars Rover computer reset bug fixed

The mars rover has been having a memory problem with the registers (data holding locations) causing it to reset. The cause for this is a flaw in the the previously unknown design idiosyncrasy in the memory management. To fix this they had to change the way that some of the unused registers where configured. The error was first discovered on Nov. 29, 2011, three days after launch, during use of the craft's star scanner. After narrowing down the problem they where able to fix the problem and confirming it after running billions of tests.

I found this interesting because they where able to fix it while it was on mars. It is a good thing that it was only an error in the way the computer system was running and not with the actual hardware because they can simply reprogram the way the registers work. It goes to show that even with all of the tests done before hand on a project that things can still go unnoticed until it is put in use.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20120209.html

Rocks from Mars

Rocks from Mars

 

            On January 18^th, 2012 there was a metiorite that landed in the Moraccon Dessert and was found by Maroccon villagers of Tissint. Soon after it was found scientists samples of the rock and found that it was rock from Mars. Scientists believe that a giant object not so long ago hit Mars and sent pieces of Mars rock flying out into space. They say that the other pieces of rock might have hit Earth and have not been found or they are floating in space still today. It was a very good find because the rock only landed a few months ago and because it isnt windy or doesn’t rain in the dessert the rock was pretty well reserved. Professor Christopher Herd says, “Its really fresh. Its really glassy looking because its only been on the ground for a few months in a nice dry enviroment.”

            I thought that this article was interesting because it’s a very strange thing that doesn’t happen that often. And because the article was so recent I thought it was a good thing to talk about. I think that this find is important for scientists today because meteroites that don’t burn up in the Earths atmosphere and actually hit the Earth don’t happen very often. Or when they do they are found a long while after they hit. And its even better that it’s a rock from Mars. We can learn more about Mars’s rocks and about meteroites.

For more information go to: Rocks From Mars

Mor Pictures of Mars: Pictures of Mars

Oceans on Mars?

About seven years ago European Space Agency deployed the Mars Advance Radar in 2005 and has been collecting data since it was deployed.

Planetary Science and Astrophysics from Grenoble and University of California, Irvine have gone over the data it has collected of over two years. What they have identified is that there is ancient shore lines on mars. It was found on the Northern plains of Mars covered in low density material. Some of the scientists that helped research this subject found that two oceans could have been around about 4 billion year ago with the warmer conditions. About 3 billion years ago when the conditions were still warm the subsurface ice melted causing it to melt and the water to flow to lower elevations on Mars. The scientist think that the oceans life was short lived only about a million years which is not long enough for life to be present in the ocean. To see if life actually existed in Mars' ocean they would have to look back even further in history when liquid water still was present on Mars. The scientists are still trying to figure out what happened to all the water. With all the evidence that they have collected over the years to show there was an ocean its hard to say how that much water could just disappear. Some scientist say that it slowly evaporated in to Mars' atmosphere.

http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2012/02/Mars%20Express%20radar%20gives%20strong%20evidence%20for%20former%20Mars%20ocean.aspx